How To Find And Tame A Minecraft Wolf
Minecraft 1.4 came with one especially exciting upgrade - pet wolves! Wolves are a tameable mob that will follow you around and protect you when you're in danger. If you're excited
about the addition of dogs and want your very own loyal wolf pet,
here's how to find one. I speak from personal experience, being the proud owner of three white wolves. (The number of wolves you can tame is not yet limited, so enjoy building yourself a wolf pack!)
Here's an excerpt
from my Minecraft journal concerning Wolves (and a pretty amazing seed that is worth checking out, IMO):
I don't know what it is about this particular seed (onepointfour). I don't know if it is the seed or of Mojang changed something in the 1.4 update, but there are just forests upon forests upon forests here. Every available inch of dirt has a tree in it. Chopping them down makes for a whole lot of woody resources that's for sure, but it also means that it rains saplings. After ten or so minutes of chopping trees I had almost a whole stack of 64 saplings.
After roaming through the forests for hours on end looking for wolves, I happened across pretty awesome natural formation (a large rocky overhang over water with trees growing all around) and decided that this locale will be my base for wolf hunting. Wolves, although present in the 1.4 update, are rare. This means I'm going to have to settle down and civilize the place a little so I don't have to spend my nights away, spraying arrows at everything that moves.
I didn't actually end up staying in that location, I ended up wandering around for vast periods of time, searching for wolves. I traveled several Minecraft days (probably seven or so) before I found any. I'm not sure that the amount of distance traveled really mattered all that much, Wolves are simply a rare spawn and it's possible, I suppose, that if you simply stayed in one spot and waited some might eventually spawn nearby.
The map below shows just how much distance was covered before I found wolves. In fact, I'd actually given up on wolves and decided to make a cake factory when three spawned right next to my half built building. It just goes to show that the old adage about watched pots never boiling and rare wolves never spawning whilst watched is true.
Whilst you're waiting for your wolves to show up you can prepare to tame them by collecting bones. Skeleton archers drop bones when killed. Feed these bones to a wolf (by holding a bone and right clicking on the wolf) to tame it. It could take several bones to tame a wolf, so don't be discouraged if your canine friends ignore you at first.
Once tamed, wolves will attack mobs that attack you, apart from creepers. If they get hurt whilst fighting for you, they can be fed and healed with raw pork chops. Wolves are able to cross water and seem to enjoy swimming, but beware, when they get out of the water, they'll shake themselves just like pet dogs!